They came to Baghdad - Agatha Christie [20]
‘Of course,’ said Mrs Clayton shaking hands. ‘We went to the bazaars together and you bought some lovely rugs.’
It was Mrs Clayton’s delight when not buying things herself to urge on her friends and acquaintances to seek for bargains in the local souks. She had a wonderful knowledge of values and was an excellent bargainer.
‘One of the best purchases I’ve ever made,’ said Richard. ‘And entirely owing to your good offices.’
‘Baker wants to fly to Kuwait tomorrow,’ said Gerald Clayton. ‘I’ve said that we can put him up here for tonight.’
‘But if it’s any trouble,’ began Richard.
‘Of course it’s no trouble,’ said Mrs Clayton. ‘You can’t have the best spare room, because Captain Crosbie has got it, but we can make you quite comfortable. You don’t want to buy a nice Kuwait chest, do you? Because they’ve got some lovely ones in the souk just now. Gerald wouldn’t let me buy another one for here though it would be quite useful to keep extra blankets in.’
‘You’ve got three already, dear,’ said Clayton mildly. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, Baker. I must get back to the office. There seems to have been a spot of trouble in the outer office. Somebody let off a revolver, I understand.’
‘One of the local sheikhs, I suppose,’ said Mrs Clayton. ‘They are so excitable and they do so love firearms.’
‘On the contrary,’ said Richard. ‘It was an Englishman. His intention seemed to be to take a potshot at an Arab.’ He added gently, ‘I knocked his arm up.’
‘So you were in it all,’ said Clayton. ‘I didn’t realize that.’ He fished a card out of his pocket. ‘Robert Hall, Achilles Works, Enfield, seems to be his name. I don’t know what he wanted to see me about. He wasn’t drunk, was he?’
‘He said it was a joke,’ said Richard drily, ‘and that the gun went off by accident.’
Clayton raised his eyebrows.
‘Commercial travellers don’t usually carry loaded guns in their pockets,’ he said.
Clayton, Richard thought, was no fool.
‘Perhaps I ought to have stopped him going away.’
‘It’s difficult to know what one should do when these things happen. The man he fired at wasn’t hurt?’
‘No.’
‘Probably was better to let the thing slide, then.’
‘I wonder what was behind it?’
‘Yes, yes…I wonder too.’
Clayton looked a little distrait.
‘Well, I must be getting back,’ he said and hurried away.
Mrs Clayton took Richard into the drawing-room, a large inside room, with green cushions and curtains and offered him a choice of coffee or beer. He chose beer and it came deliciously iced.
She asked him why he was going to Kuwait and he told her.
She asked him why he hadn’t got married yet and Richard said he didn’t think he was the marrying kind, to which Mrs Clayton said briskly, ‘Nonsense.’ Archaeologists, she said, made splendid husbands – and were there any young women coming out to the Dig this season? One or two, Richard said, and Mrs Pauncefoot Jones of course.
Mrs Clayton asked hopefully if they were nice girls who were coming out, and Richard said he didn’t know because he hadn’t met them yet. They were very inexperienced, he said.
For some reason this made Mrs Clayton laugh.
Then a short stocky man with an abrupt manner came in and was introduced as Captain Crosbie. Mr Baker, said Mrs Clayton, was an archaeologist and dug up the most wildly interesting things thousands of years old. Captain Crosbie said he never could understand how archaeologists were able to say so definitely how old these things were. Always used to think they must be the most awful liars, ha ha, said Captain Crosbie. Richard looked at him in a rather tired kind of way. No, said Captain Crosbie, but how did an archaeologist know how old a thing was? Richard said that that would take a long time to explain, and Mrs Clayton quickly took him away to see his room.
‘He’s very nice,’ said Mrs Clayton, ‘but not quite quite, you know. Hasn’t got any idea of culture.’
Richard found his room exceedingly comfortable, and his appreciation of Mrs Clayton as a hostess rose still higher.